The invention relates generally to radiation detectors, and more specifically to a power management technique for radiation detectors with multiple channel ASIC or discrete readout electronics.
In a radiation detector that employs a multiple channel ASIC readout, the number of readout channels is set by the detector position resolution requirement and/or the need to correct the material non-uniformity, which is common for most of the high band gap semiconductor materials such as CZT, CdTe and HgI2. If the number of required ASIC channels is on the order of hundreds, and even if each channel consumes only a few milliwatts of power, the total power consumption for the readout ASIC could be on the order of a few Watts or more. For portable/handheld applications, a large power consumption requires a big battery, or the device can be used for only a short period of time before the battery has to be recharged or replaced.
One common approach to minimize power consumption associated with a radiation detector requires periodically putting the ASIC into a low power sleep mode. This solution is problematic however, since the detector is not sensitive to the radiation source while it is in the sleep mode. The radiation detector thus may miss detection of the presence of a radiation source.
In view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method of minimizing power consumption associated with a radiation detector that avoids the above problems.